Morning journal and courier., 1887-12-22
Thursday, December 22, 1887
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.

MUNICIPAL L GOVERN M EETs Mir. James Parton in the Chautauquan for January discusses problem which is attract ing more and more attention in this country namely, that of municipal government. MT. Parton points out to begin with that 1 they know better in Europe how to govern cities than in this country. He says: Some very good Americans, while walking about for the first time in q well-ordered European city, such as Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Dresden, 1 have not been able to suppress certain doubt as to the institutions of their own country, whether they are indeed founded on | the safe basis of reason and right. If gov ernment in those famous cities is not by the people. it appears to be for the people. | Thoughtful and wise care seems to be taken of the peoples comfort, health and pleasure. \ Think what is implied in the habit which prevails in many continental cities of sitting, | reading, conversing, eating out of doors, on | the sidewalks, in balconies close to the l street, on front bay windows opening on l lawns and flower plots; these never molested
 by the hand or foot of passing boy. Thou | sands of people almost live out of doors in l those cities during the summer months. Be- fore such pleasant customs could establish | themselves in populous capital, some power must have waged victorious warfare against 1 dirt and disorder in most of their obvious
 forms. Systematic sweeping above ground
 and scientific drainage below must have pre- 1 pared the way.
 He compares the condition of American
 towns of thirty or forty thousand people with that of foreign places of like size, and 1 ascribes to the character of our local officials
 and the fact that they are not highly paid, permanent, professional office holders, the difference he discerns between the urban l conditions of the two continents. And he lays good deal of the blame for the condi- I ton of affairs upon Benjamin Franklin and | Andrew Jackson. He says that Jackson
 s'debauched all politics by acting upon the
 maxim that to the victor belongs the spells. " l And of Franklin he says: Our municipal sys- tenn was arranged when most competent men command could the little leisure which public | duty then required, and Dr. Franklin, in the
 convention of 17s7, based his plan of govern | ment upon that fact. He said that he could ! not doubt that it would always be possible 1 to find in the United States men of leisure
 and public spirit to perform the simple duties
 which a rational republican government l would impose.
 Mir. Parton, like others who have attempt
 ed to clear up this matter, doesn't present
 anything that is conclusive and practicable
 as remedy. But his main idea is indicated
 in the following: Imagine Mayor Hewitt
 surrounded by city legislature consisting of
 hundred of the best, the wisest, the ablest
 citizens that New York contains: Heads of
 great firms, masters of great.sehools, natural
 chiefs of the people, men who have proved
 their capacity for public life by fair success in private enterprise, and all of them con
 tributing of their substance every year to the
 fund which they first sanction and then ex.
 pend.
 Of course city would be better ruled by
 first rate men than by poorer ones. But how
 to put them in office or get them to stay
 there are questions which are not easy to an. !